In 2022, a Ukrainian commando blew up the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline. DER SPIEGEL has learned that the CIA may have spoken to the saboteurs during the planning stage.
The first Russian assault on the capital of Ukraine had only recently been repelled when, in the spring of 2022, operatives from the CIA, America’s foreign intelligence agency, met with Ukrainian specialists in covert sabotage operations in the Podil district of Kyiv. The group was apparently familiar with each other – they had known each other for years.
The Ukrainians, according to people familiar with the meeting, had brought an idea along with them: They wanted to blow up the Nord Stream pipelines, the tubes that transported several billion cubic meters of natural gas from Russia to Germany, thereby providing a source of financing for Moscow’s war against their country. The Americans appeared to like the plan, Ukrainian participants in the meeting would later tell confidants.
Additional meetings between the CIA representatives and the masterminds of the attacks on the gas pipelines at the bottom of the Baltic Sea are said to have followed. DER SPIEGEL was able to speak with several individuals in Ukraine who provided details about the meetings. According to their accounts, the Americans knew about the attack plans far earlier than previously known.
They say that to the planners of the Nord Stream attack, the U.S. agents, in spring 2022, appeared at the very least to be sympathetic listeners. The insiders say they discussed technical details pertaining to the sabotage operation.
Is that an accurate account? When approached for comment, a CIA spokesperson called the story “completely and utterly false.” The CIA declined to say what precisely about the account was inaccurate.
DER SPIEGEL has decided to report on the events despite the denial by the U.S. intelligence agency. The editorial team has known the Ukrainian sources for years, and the information provided by those sources has consistently proven to be accurate. They knew details of the attack early on that were only later confirmed by German investigators.
"Highly Likely" State-Directed
The accounts make an issue that was already delicate for the government in Berlin even more uncomfortable.
Currently, former Ukrainian commando soldier Serhiy K. is being held in pretrial detention in Hamburg. He is alleged to have been involved in the destruction of the pipelines in September 2022. That month, several men and one woman sailed across the Baltic Sea on a chartered yacht called Andromeda. Near the Danish island of Bornholm, divers attached military-grade explosives to the gas pipelines on the seabed.
The article you are reading originally appeared in German in issue 9/2026 (February 20th, 2026) of DER SPIEGEL.
According to a detention order by the Federal Court of Justice in the case of Serhiy K., which was made public in mid-January, the operation was “highly likely” to have been state-directed. The state in question is Ukraine – the very country the German government has been supporting with many billions of euros since the Russian invasion.
Now, it appears that U.S. intelligence operatives may have been aware of the attack plan in its early stages and did not initially object to it, according to DER SPIEGEL’s reporting. Only later did they change their minds and warn the Ukrainians against carrying out the operation – without success.
Specialist in Covert Operations
Serhiy K. belongs to the circle of Roman Chervinsky, a specialist in covert operations and sabotage who formerly worked for Ukraine’s domestic intelligence agency, the SBU. He is considered the mastermind behind the attacks.
The now 51-year-old was part of an elite unit co-established by the CIA after the Maidan Revolution in 2014.
Suspected attack coordinator Roman Chervinsky.
Foto: Iryna Vlasiuk / Global Images Ukraine / Getty ImagesThe SBU’s so-called Fifth Directorate made a name for itself with spectacular operations against pro-Russian separatists. Targeted killings were also part of the secret unit’s repertoire. When Chervinsky transferred to Ukraine’s military intelligence service HUR in 2019, the covert work against Moscow continued – often with U.S. assistance.
Following a failed operation, though, Chervinsky was forced to leave the intelligence service in 2020. But with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, his skills were once again in demand. Early in the war, the sabotage expert helped defend Kyiv. But once the Russians had been pushed back from the gates of the capital, the old team of commando specialists reassembled – this time as part of the special forces in the Ukrainian army.
In principle, it hadn’t mattered over the years which service or which unit one belonged to, said a former Ukrainian member of these commando teams. “We worked together with the Americans.”
Code Name “Diameter”
In spring 2022, the search was on for new ideas to inflict maximum damage on the Russian enemy. And an old idea resurfaced among the commando members: They could attack the Nord Stream pipelines.
By this point, the pipelines in the Baltic Sea had long been a thorn in the side of Ukraine and the vast majority of Western nations. Nord Stream allowed Russia to supply Europe directly with natural gas, bypassing Ukraine. Not only was Kyiv losing out on transit fees, but the pipelines made Germany, Europe’s most powerful country, dependent on the Kremlin. Without that pipeline, according to the saboteurs’ logic, the Russians would lose an important means of applying political pressure.
The U.S. had never been supportive of the gas pipelines stretching more than 1,200 kilometers from Russia to Germany. In early 2022, then-President Joe Biden had threatened to end the project in light of the planned commissioning of Nord Stream 2: If Russia were to invade Ukraine, there would be “no longer a Nord Stream 2.”
Over the course of several months, the Ukrainians developed a plan to have divers attach explosives to the pipelines. They considered various routes and vessels, deliberated over the type of explosives and searched for suitable men and women capable of diving to depths of up to 80 meters. The saboteurs also gave the operation a code name: Operation “Diameter.”
In Ukraine, the operation was ultimately approved by then-Commander in Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, according to insiders – but not by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The secret commando team did not inform the presidential office, sources in Kyiv say.
In parallel, according to the Ukrainian insiders, there were repeated meetings with the Americans to discuss the planned operation. "They told our guys: That’s okay,” says a man with knowledge of the conversations. At that point, the Ukrainians say, they had not yet heard any words of caution – quite the opposite.
Secret Meetings with the CIA
Already during the second meeting, according to the account provided by the Ukrainian insiders, the CIA gave a signal of support for the operation: Go ahead. Not only that, but the impression arose on the Ukrainian side that the U.S. agents might even assist with the financing of the plan.
The CIA declined to comment on this detail when asked by DER SPIEGEL. The intelligence agency only said that DER SPIEGEL’s reporting was “wildly inaccurate” and “shouldn’t be read for factual information.”
In the spring of 2022, U.S. security circles say, Washington’s strategic calculus had been entirely different. Back then, the priority had been to organize the greatest possible support for Ukraine. Why would the U.S. endorse an attack on an ally’s infrastructure?
Reporting by other media outlets suggests that the saboteurs had at least informed their American partners about the plan. In 2025, Joshua Yaffa, a journalist for the New Yorker, described in an article a meeting with a former U.S. official who had worked with Ukraine.
Yaffa told the man he had heard that the CIA had been informed of the plans for the pipeline attack. The man’s reaction did not sound like a denial. There had been “a constant flow of novel, creative ideas,” Yaffa quoted his source as saying. “Some were good, others not so much.” Ultimately, though, the story notes, the CIA rejected the plan.
According to DER SPIEGEL’s reporting, that rejection took place in the early summer of 2022. According to Ukrainian security circles, the Americans curtly told the commando leaders that they could not support the operation. Above all, they said, they could not provide any money. No direct explanation was given, the Ukrainian security officials said.
Warning from the Netherlands
How do these detailed accounts square with the CIA’s denial?
It is possible that the U.S. agents in their conversations with the saboteurs in Kyiv merely wanted to extract as much information as possible, creating the impression that they supported the operation. Perhaps it also took a while for the Ukrainian sabotage plans to make their way from U.S. agents in Kyiv to decision-makers in the U.S. – who were presumably far from enthusiastic.
And then, in June 2022, there was also an intelligence leak that jeopardized the entire operation. As the German newspaper Die Zeit first reported, the Dutch military intelligence service MIVD had gotten wind of the attack plans through a source in Ukraine. The Dutch warned both the CIA and the BND, Germany’s foreign intelligence agency. The CIA itself additionally forwarded the information from the Netherlands to the BND, saying that a Ukrainian commando unit was planning an attack on the Nord Stream pipelines. Divers were to be brought to the vicinity of the target on a sailing vessel to attach explosives to the pipelines on the seabed, according to the information.
$300,000 for Equipment and Explosives
The Germans were skeptical. They based their doubts about the tip in part on the fact that it included a date for the planned attack – but by the time the warning had reached Berlin, that date had already passed and nothing had happened. In reality, though, the saboteurs had merely postponed their operation.
The U.S. government now apparently tried actively to prevent the attack. A CIA representative from the agency’s Kyiv station reportedly raised the matter at the Ukrainian presidential office, insisting that the operation be called off. Word that the plans had been exposed also apparently reached the top echelons of the military, including Zaluzhnyi, the commander-in-chief at the time.
But the warnings went unheeded. The sabotage team pressed ahead without U.S. approval.
According to DER SPIEGEL’s reporting, the secret commando found a new sponsor: a private Ukrainian citizen. He reportedly covered the bulk of the approximately $300,000 in costs for equipment, boat rental and explosives, insiders say.
On September 7, 2022, the sailing yacht chartered by the commando set out from the German town of Warnemünde into the Baltic Sea. On board, investigators believe, were six men and one woman, including civilian divers and a captain. Commando soldier Serhiy K. is believed by German investigators to have been in charge on the boat.
Nearly three weeks later, seismographs in Sweden registered the disturbance – so powerful were the shock waves from the explosions. A carpet of gas bubbles up to 1,000 meters wide rose to the surface. Three of the four Nord Stream pipeline strings had been destroyed.
